Author: Martyn Zachary

Merchants of Brooklyn

Martyn Zachary 1 Comment

While Zeno Clash might have been on the receiving end of some hefty accolades already, we shan’t forget there are others in line for a title shot at the crown of the new Dark Messiah! A trailer recently reared its head for a new challenger in the seldom-seen HTH-FPS genre, Merchants of Brooklyn (MOB for short).

This CryEngine 2-based, Steam-distributed PC-only game from Paleo Entertainment pretends to the throne from vastly different origins than the two aforementioned fantasy games, for it presents to us a Babelian Manhattan in the year 3100. The city has been rebuilt – entirely skywards, this time – after a devastating flood caused by global warming.

Casting Call
Casting Call

As its inhabitants ascend, not enough work force remains; meanwhile, human cloning has advanced immensely and has primarily refocused on the Neanderthal DNA for its physical resiliency. However, due to a contractual miscalculation in producing workers for the city, too many Neo-Neanderthal clones end up being produced and are outright outcast to be the bottom feeders of the new society.

To the save the local mob – the Merchants of Brooklyn – who discover a lucrative opportunity in the plight of the clones and begin to arrange lucrative Neonean fights to the death. The player, a Neo-Neanderthal himself, has his arm unwillingly replaced with a chainsaw and realizes he’s had enough of the fun and games, and then begins his journey at the very bottom of this violent, bottoms-up society to work his way up – via gratuitous violence – and ultimately exact revenge upon his former masters and take over the Brooklyn empire together with his fellow clones.

The first teaser trailer for the project presents to us an ultraviolent, comic book –influenced dystopia with an off-the-wall setting equally influenced by the new resurgence of martial arts and the combat sports as it is by the environmental panic and the economic downturn. Perhaps. After all, sci-fi has always been a magnificent vehicle for social critique, and although several other games tackle similar ideas as presented in the backstory to MOB, it will be very intriguing to see if there’s more to the game than the bone-crunching melee.

Check out the teaser trailer and pictures after the jump and stay tuned for an in-depth Side to Side on both Zeno Clash and Merchants of Brooklyn!

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Zeno Clash

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This year’s standout finalist in the IGF “Excellence in Visual Art” category and ModDB’s Best Upcoming Indie game for 2008, Zeno Clash, a tiny yet potentially explosive close combat -oriented indie FPS built around the Source engine, is coming fresh off the back of a string of accolades preceding its actual release.

Ghat and Deadra
Ghat and Deadra

In the game, players settle in the role of Ghat, a young man fleeing away from his creator, the Father-Mother, the most powerful clan leader in the city of Halstedom. The rebellious chap must escape and fight his way thru the dangerous lands of Zenozoik together with his companion, the high-spirited and trust-worthy Deadra.

The most distinct quality of Zeno Clash seems to be its ability to potently divide an audience like Moses did water, and if anything, the fearless look and feel rooted in a mind-bending array of influences – including Hieronymus Bosch, John Blanche and Dark Crystal 1)http://www.moddb.com/games/zeno-clash/features/zeno-clash-interview-part-1 – seems like an open call for opinionage.

Obviously, for an indie game, it’s definitely better to go down in flames than simply fade away, and the ACE Team have this all planned: Project leader Andres Bordeu indeed notes that the team actually feels safer about the off-the-hook stylistics:

From a certain point of view going for the unconventional has been the safe thing to do for us. … We knew it was impossible to compete with big companies that tend to put a lot of their muscle in technology graphics-wise.

If you’re interested, RPS have posted an article on the game in their Unknown Pleasures series, and the two-part ModDB article can be found here and here, respectively. The team promises a solid 4-5 hours of gaming, for the competitive price tag of $20, and if Arkane’s Dark Messiah from 2006 is anything to go by, Zeno Clash is bound to be an exciting, corporeal experience at best, and a curious piece of gaming ephemera at worst.

Personally, I expect nothing but the best from the project. For a few more screenshots, check out the gallery after the jump.

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Indiana Jones and the Stuff of Kings

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One of the more disappointing title announcements in my recent memory came when LucasArts finally revealed Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings to the public – amidst heated rumours of the game having been altogether scrapped:

The fact that it still remains perfectly unclear whether the next-gen version of the game is still in production or not probably contributed to the relatively chilling response to the title (Some of us are already losing hope, while some remain stern!), and with the recent lay-offs at the company, even a more successful announcement would probably have been proved to be too little, too late.

Admittedly, the title is slated for release on the current mainstream platforms (Wii, Nintendo DS, Playstation2, and the PSP), but I can’t help but compare the screenshots, in gentlemanly fashion, to an earlier game in a similar vein…

The prerendered trailer makes the announcement that much sourer because of the fact that we can all still remember our euphoric response to LucasArts’ then-revolutionary application of the Endorphin/Euphoria physics engine, and the smashing 2006 E3 footage for the game.

Oh, and the “Fate of Atlantis” unlockable is Wii only.

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Telltale Takes Marketing Turn, Offers Free Swag Again

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I’ll be a tattletale and let you know that Telltale is at it once again, furiously handing out free copies of their products. This time around you get to choose, too, between Sam and Max: Ice Station Santa and Strong Bad Episode 4: Dangeresque 3.

The catch? Sign up to the mailing list. For once your multi-account e-mail hell is good for something, since I know you are already registered, ha!

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Dystopia and Eternal Silence Steamworked

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Hot off the Steamworks oven, Dystopia and Eternal Silence, two grade A Half-Life 2 modifications.

Dystopia is a cyberpunk-themed, team- and class-based modification that has its techno-augmented players combating and completing various objectives both in and out of cyberspace. To jack yourself up to cyberspace, hop to steam://install/17580

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Eternal Silence is a large-scale science fiction space combat modification that focuses on dogfights between smaller ships and assaults on larger motherships that result in human-sized FPS shoot-outs on decks and hangars. To get your flight on, consider steam://install/17550ngm_nebular13

Obviously, both projects stand out in the current modification landscape, not only because of their sci-fi –based setting and extremely polished look and feel, but also because both teams pride in dual-layered (cyberspace/real world and space/decks, respectively) game design, and as an indirect result have also somewhat struggled to find an audience large enough to sustain the core game mechanics to their fullest.

Both teams have also suffered some severe setbacks down the line – Eternal Silence being released with less-than-stellar (no pun intended) net code and a backlash after an IGF “Best Multiplayer Mod” nomiation in 2007 and Dystopia failing to meet its over-hyped expectations in its demo version. Let us hope both games will finally find their well-deserved player base thru Steamworks!

Check out a gallery for both games after the jump and stay tuned for more discussion on the positives and negatives of the Steamworks platform for modifications.

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